At least one attendee at a recent Capitol Hill screening of a film titled “NAZA” was surprised to find it was not the internationally acclaimed documentary examining Israel’s actions in Gaza, but a rebuttal film crafted by Israeli filmmakers.
The screening, held on Oct. 15 in the Rayburn House Office Building, drew just over a dozen people. The film, “NAZA: The real story,” was produced to counter the original documentary, which had received widespread attention and a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival in September.
The original “NAZA,” directed by Israeli investigative journalists Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, and produced by The Guardian, detailed allegations that Israeli military officials approved strikes with high civilian death tolls, including one instance where up to 500 civilian deaths were considered acceptable for a single target. The film drew intense criticism in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for a criminal probe into the anonymous soldiers interviewed, and Israel’s culture minister threatening to revoke the filmmakers’ citizenship.
In response, Ariel Averbuch, a reserve major in the Israeli military, and two other Israeli filmmakers spent two weeks creating “The real story.” Averbuch told The Hill before the screening, “We did not bother refuting each and every lie. We spoke about what Hamas actually does in the strip, how they operate, their methods of operations.”
The film focuses on Hamas’s tactics of using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields, as well as the October 7, 2023, attack that killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. The dueling films underscore the intense public relations battle over Israel’s military conduct, with one side portraying Israel as defending itself against a heinous adversary and the other accusing it of acting without boundaries.
The Capitol Hill screening was organized in part by the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a nonprofit that describes itself as “proudly non-partisan, pro-America, pro-Israel and pro-truth.” The event was scheduled on short notice, and attendance was low, with only a few Congressional staffers present. There was no applause when the film ended, and three staffers approached by The Hill declined to comment. One attendee told an organizer she had expected “the opposite story.”
The screening comes amid growing bipartisan anger in Congress over Israel’s war in Gaza and its broader regional conflict with Iran. Trump’s backing of Netanyahu has further fueled debates over U.S. military support. In July, nearly half of House Democrats voted for an amendment to end U.S. military assistance to Israel, a rare coalition that included stalwart Israel supporters.
The controversy over “NAZA” also highlights a broader conversation within Israeli society about the ethics of civilian casualties. Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-Israeli commentator, said on his podcast, “Yes, we can argue about whether we abuse the category of what you and I are calling collateral killings. That’s the crucial conversation we need to have.”
For Averbuch, the original film’s premiere in Venice was a call to action. “We went on the offense,” he said, referring to the counter-documentary. The screening on Capitol Hill was part of a broader effort to bring the Israeli perspective to U.S. policymakers, as the debate over military aid continues to divide both parties.
